CANCER IS BAD!!!!!!!!

For the purpose of objectivity, I am a cigarette smoker and I will one day probably have cancer, so my bias against cancer should be noted for the record. Do not let it be said that I have made, am making, or will make any ridiculous statements advocating more cancer. Cancer is a scourge on humanity and should be eliminated, no matter the cost. (Hopefully before my lungs burn out, obviously.) Remember, no matter the cost.

My bitter arch-nemesis Peter Sprigg (curse his name and lineage), vice president of policy at the Family Research Council, is not so enthusiastic about eradicating our tumorous enemy, Mr C. The people at Merck have developed a vaccine to prevent HPV, a leading factor in the onset of cervical cancer. Their only wish for it’s introduction to society (besides the billions in profits they’ll reap)? Mandatory vaccination for school admission. Is that really so bad?

The Family Research Council would have people believe that this vaccine will innoculate young people with the idea that being safe from one disease will make them more at risk for unprotected sex and all of the other many sexually transmitted diseases. Sheesh, IF ONLY getting women to take their clothes off were so easy. Hell, I’d open up a free clinic in my bedroom if I thought that would work! Maybe I am just on the fringe, as usual, thinking that better medicine AND accurate sexual education would help eliminate many of the things that Mr Sprigg frets over so much. Abstinence hasn’t moved or changed from the Number One Method Of Preventing Disease And Pregnancy, yet nevertheless, disease and pregnancy keep happening. This should tell us something about human behavior and judgmental nonsense from religious conservatives.

Is less unmarried sex still more desirable than less cancer? Less suffering? Less death? Are we still listening to a bunch of old men who have nothing better to do than sit around all day wailing, moaning, and gnashing their teeth at the though of teenage girls having sex with boys?

Held up by work, I missed the first few minutes of Bush’s speech, but I heard enough.

This wasn’t discussed at all by anyone in the recent past, so I can’t say I’m disappointed, but it would’ve been nice to hear something about increasing the number of green cards offered annually. Let’s face it: we’re in desperate need of more engineers, scientists, and researchers. We’re losing ground in innovation, and I blame a large part of that on post-9/11 xenophobia. It’s so hard to get into the country, some of the world’s best students don’t bother to apply to study here anymore.

Worse, those students who do make it in are interrogated to make sure they have no intention of staying in the U.S. after their graduate studies are complete. Their acceptance at the best U.S. schools is a clear indication that they’re among the smartest people in the world. Why exactly are we encouraging them to leave? I’ve read a couple recommendations to automatically offer green cards to anyone who earns a Ph.D. in the U.S. Put me down as someone in full support of such an idea.

Actually, I don’t think I have much to write about what Bush actually did say tonight. I can’t complain too much about National Guard troops taking a non-law enforcement role on the border (keeping it non-militarized), aside from the unfairness of keeping these people constantly deployed. In fact, Bush’s tame approach to border control coupled with his plan to offer a path to citizenship will be a tough sell to the conservative House of Representatives. They’ll cry “amnesty” no matter how head-on Bush confronted that term tonight.

As a pro-immigration liberal, I have no problem with enforcing the country’s borders to keep out illegal immigrants. I do believe, however, that our economy and innovative leadership depends on finding the right immigrants to come over. Raise those immigration limits, Congress, and start taking notice of the importance of bringing over highly educated foreigners.

People who increasingly characterize the war on terror as a battle of religions are increasingly correct. While the US and the West may wish to tell their citizens that it is a battle of societies and civilizations, it’s really about which Big Guy in the Sky that each side chooses to worship. The real irony is that essentially, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all share the same God, just by different names. But how can you say that, Mr Kedder, without any proof?

Well, let’s review some of the basic facts. George Bush (intentionally or not, it happened) called the operations in Afghanistan a “crusade”. Crusade is a term for a religious war. The religious leaders who so adamantly support our wonderful GOP Congress with political speeches in tax-exempt churches waste no opportunity to call Muslims “devils”, “Satan worshippers” and just plain “evil”. Even the military has hopped on board, apparently letting Jerry Falwell name our maneuvers with such inspiring monikers like “Divine Strake.” Divine strake, eh? What’s so divine about it again? Is it the immediate destruction or the lingering radioactive destruction?

But this isn’t a one-sided war that Christians are picking. (They’re just jumping in with such glee that it [i]seems[/i] like this is what they’ve been praying for all along.) Muslims aren’t making this any easier either. Just ask the folks that want to bring back the Caliphate. Oh, and am I the only one who had chilling visions of beheading squads roaming out of the mosque/palace/seat of government to punish all the non-believers at the mention of the phrase “the Caliphate”? Because reading that, I’m not exactly inspires that this bastion of Islamic society would allow such things as freedom of religion, or speech, or dissent, or many of the other lovely, quaint things that we’ve gotten so used to in our Great Satan Society over here. I mean, I could be way off, but it sounds like this Caliphate movement stands for nothing less than the extermination of all non-Islamic relgions. And what’s scary is that they have tens of thousands of followers, apparently.

Let’s do ourselves a favor and remain firm in the separation of church and state in this country. To allow the Christian right fringe and the Israel lobby continue to direct our international policy will be to put us into battles and wars that will serve no purpose other than to try and prove who’s God has a bigger dick. (Psst. It’s Vishnu.) Americans may want to give Christian fanatics a pass because they’re white, and they’re fellow citizens, and they seem slightly less radical than their Muslim counterparts, but rest assured, both sides are fighting to control all of life and society for all peoples based on the religous codes of outdated books with questionable authorship. I choose to believe that a secular government, protecting the private religions of all of its citizens, can combat the forces of jihad better than any Christian theocracy. And since America never was, isn’t now, and never should be a Christian theocracy, let’s try and keep things that way.

I’m tired of Americans complaining about gasoline prices. You reap what you sow. Did you really believe that 5% of the world’s population could consume 25% of the world’s energy indefinitely? Did you believe that oil supplies were unlimited, or that no other countries in the world would begin to industrialize? Americans buy huge, gas-guzzling vehicles and use ridiculous amounts of plastic packaging. It was bound to catch up with us.

I’m no fan of the energy industry, but it’s time to stop blaming oil companies, or at the very least it’s time to stop putting 100% of the blame on them. If you want to talk about being ripped off, you should be more concerned with the 25% profit margins of the banking and pharmaceutical industries than the 10% margins the oil industry averages.

Moreover, it’s a supply and demand issue. If gasoline is outrageously priced, don’t buy it, or buy less of it. When study after study shows no appreciable decline in gasoline consumption even at these “high” price levels, how exactly do Americans expect prices to drop? I won’t dismiss the possibility of Enron-style market manipulation (great documentary), but right there’s so much scrutiny on that sector (you know things are crazy when Republicans are considering windfall profit taxes) that these companies would be insane to try anything that foolish.

Bottom line: reduce consumption. Employ some strategies to reduce fuel consumption in your current vehicle, and in the future make more intelligent decisions about fuel economy when purchasing a car. Little things like not slamming the accelerator when the light turns green, only to have to slam the brakes at the next light can help. Besides annoying people like me by tailgating more steady drivers, you’re wasting fuel.

I would love to see a Chinese-style consumption tax. It’s far too easy to overuse petroleum-derived products when you can buy a thousand plastic forks for under $20. Tax plastic utensils 100%. Tax SUVs 20%. I’ve been wanting gasoline to be taxed higher for a long time now, though that’d be politically impossible at this point.

The price of oil-derived goods will go up one way or another. By taxing the crap out of this stuff, we can reduce consumption, drive down demand, and lower the wholesale price. Better, I say, to have it go towards medical research or education than the coffers of oil companies.

There’s nothing political here in this post, just some good clean fun. Check out this site and be mesmerized for as long as you want by the wackiness of it all. After watching this for a while, all I could think of was how cool it would be to have my mind put in some android body with the ability to move and bend like the one in this program and actually be set loose in a freefall through these bubbles. Why does it look fun? Because it probably would be.